From Historynet: Today in History March 13

483             St. Felix  begins his reign as Catholic Pope.

607             The 12th recorded passage of Halley's Comet occurs.

1519          Hernando Cortez  lands in what will become Mexico.

1660          A statute is passed limiting the sale of slaves in the colony of Virginia.

1777          Congress orders its European envoys to appeal to high-ranking foreign officers to send troops to reinforce the American army.

1781          Astronomer William Herschel  discovers the planet Uranus, which he names 'Georgium Sidus,' in honor of 

King George III .

1793          Eli Whitney  patents the cotton gin.

1861          Jefferson Davis  signs a bill authorizing slaves to be used as soldiers for the Confederacy.

1868          The U.S. Senate begins the impeachment trial of 

President Andrew Johnson .

1881          Czar Alexander II  is assassinated when a bomb is thrown at him near his palace.

1915          The Germans repel a British Expeditionary Force attack at the Battle of Neuve Chapelle in France.

1918          Women are scheduled to march in the St. Patrick's Day Parade in New York due to a shortage of men.

1935          A three-thousand-year-old archive is found in Jerusalem confirming biblical history.

1940          Finland capitulates conditionally to Soviet terms, but maintains its independence.

1941          Hitler  issues an edict calling for an invasion of the Soviet Union.

1942          Julia Flikke  of the Nurse Corps becomes the first woman colonel in the U.S. Army.

1943          Japanese forces end their attack on the American troops on Hill 700 in Bougainville.

1951          Israel demands $1.5 billion in German reparations for the cost of caring for war refugees.

1957          The FBI arrests Jimmy Hoffa  on bribery charges.

1963          China invites 

Soviet Premiere Nikita Khrushchev  to visit Beijing.

1970          Cambodia orders Hanoi and Viet Cong troops to get out.

1974          The U.S. Senate votes 54-33 to restore the death penalty.

1974          Arab nations decide to end the oil embargo on the United States.

1981          The United States plans to send 15 Green Berets to El Salvador as military advisors.

1985          Upon the death of Konstantin Chernenko , Mikhail Gorbachev  becomes the new leader of the Soviet Union.

1991          Exxon pays $1 billion in fines and costs for the clean-up of the Alaskan oil spill.